Ward is rong.
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 19 November 2014 18:43 (nine years ago) link
ADM is a totally different, albeit minor and enjoyable, film
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 19 November 2014 18:47 (nine years ago) link
it has one really good joke in it
surveying, ranking the oeuvre
http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/the-films-of-david-cronenberg-ranked
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:00 (nine years ago) link
survey is good, rankings are ridic
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:07 (nine years ago) link
Top 5 is accurate (in a different order, but still).
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:09 (nine years ago) link
Crash is so bad
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:16 (nine years ago) link
Eric possibly otm
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:18 (nine years ago) link
Crash is much funnier than Maps to the Stars.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:22 (nine years ago) link
I loathed Crash in '97 (my first experience with crowds exiting a theatre) but it's due for a "rescreen."
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:24 (nine years ago) link
A Dangerous Method has to be the worst, I forgot that was Cronenberg.
― lil urbane (Jordan), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:26 (nine years ago) link
careful w morbz trigger-word there Alfred
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:27 (nine years ago) link
I knew it was from how the precision of those images and how Freud and Jung are set up as umbilically connected as the Mantle twins.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:27 (nine years ago) link
how
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:28 (nine years ago) link
Dangerous Method has at least one good joke in it, which is more than you can say for Crash which is just tedious
xp
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:28 (nine years ago) link
― Οὖτις,
"I"?
funnier?
Naked Lunch left me cold once Judy Davis exited, bn meaning to try again
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:29 (nine years ago) link
the pacing of Naked Lunch is v strange and it drags for a bit in the last third but is redeemed by the ending. score is great, typewriters are great, should've been more overtly homoerotic imo if it wanted to be at all true to the source material but eh it's its own thing
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:33 (nine years ago) link
the thing that's stuck with me from last year's r*scr**n of Dead Ringers is the sob of "I want some ice cream."
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:41 (nine years ago) link
I feel like those rankings were picked out of a hat
― mh, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 20:44 (nine years ago) link
every fetishist has his reasons
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 20:51 (nine years ago) link
the write-ups aren't bad at all
i really, really like history of violence, which in its own way is perfect
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 20:53 (nine years ago) link
it's really interesting to watch older cronenberg movies, esp. those from the mid-80s and earlier. he doesn't quite have his style mastered, and there are awkward moments and scenes that don't come off even as you admire what they are trying to do. but in some of the recent films you have a sense that he knows /exactly/ where to put the camera, /exactly/ when to cut, etc. there's a classical precision that's almost breathtaking.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 20:56 (nine years ago) link
The way Viggo Mortensen seems to change the very structure of his face through a change in expression when he acknowledges his past identity in AHOV is still one of my favorite scenes
― mh, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:00 (nine years ago) link
some of his recent films remind me of the moment when a lot of people felt hal hartley went off the rails.... (ca. no such thing and later). there's a sense that having achieved a summit of critical favor, the director wants to tackle projects of an appropriate sociological heft. and what results is satire that's somehow both extremely idiosyncratic and kind of obvious (in a way that seems unbecoming of such smart directors).
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:00 (nine years ago) link
xxxp Almost boring.
Give me the shagginess of his early stuff and the emerging thematic clumsiness of his most recent few any day.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:00 (nine years ago) link
the big confrontation in front of the house in "history of violence" (where viggo first shows his "true colors" to his family) is incredible. it's really kuleshovian, too -- it's not until over halfway through the scene, i think, that you get a shot that actually shows ed harris and his goons in the same frame as viggo and his family.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:01 (nine years ago) link
also really striking (and i guess derived from the graphic novel?) that history of violence begins with the bad guys, kind of like a lot of westerns.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:02 (nine years ago) link
Am willing to give History of Violence another shot, but I found it more uninvolving than clinical.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:04 (nine years ago) link
the obviousness is in "spider," too. the big climactic reveal is beautifully engineered as visual storytelling, but it's also, disappointingly, exactly what you might have feared/expected. cronenberg is much smarter than i am, so i probably shouldn't second-guess why he's sometimes drawn to material like that.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:04 (nine years ago) link
and, for the most part, give me the meat in the middle.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:05 (nine years ago) link
you guys are being really glib
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:06 (nine years ago) link
I love "milking cows and shit" from Hurt in History Of Violence.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:06 (nine years ago) link
hurt in "history of violence" is definitely a take-or-leave thing. when i first saw the film i thought he was playing too broadly, too cartoonishly. but each time i've seen it since (probably a dozen times) i figure there's really no other way to play it, and he's pretty perfect.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:07 (nine years ago) link
well it's all been said, and gets resaid (starting w/ Shakey) with every goddamn bump
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:08 (nine years ago) link
i mean doing an al pacino brooding intensity thing just wouldn't have been appropriate... it would have been too close to viggo's performance.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:08 (nine years ago) link
of his six post-2000 features (haven't seen Eastern Promises) what i really plug into is a pessimistic old-man vibe -- the world of the film is either revealed as a fraud or illusion, or is littered with multiple deaths, or both. Sure this is true of earlier work too, but seems upfront and obsessive now.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:13 (nine years ago) link
Essential: Videodrome, Stereo, Crimes of The Future.
I haven't seen anything recent by him though.
― Dave fischer, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:13 (nine years ago) link
oh now *I'm* the broken record? physician heal thyself etc
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:15 (nine years ago) link
i think we shd do a podcast/commentary where Eric and I watch Crash and Cosmopolis with you and point out the funny parts.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:20 (nine years ago) link
Whatever gains Cronenberg has made w. the 'classical precision' of his recent(ish) films - and I'm w/ Eric, give me the rough edges of his first and best movies over the Merchant Ivory mise-en-scene of Dangerous Method - its been accompanied by a fatal loss of that energy given off by the wild ideas zinging round Shivers, Brood etc
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:20 (nine years ago) link
the Merchant Ivory mise-en-scene of Dangerous Method
gahhh, this is such a misunderstanding of ADM. 19th-c furniture does not equal stodgy. also Merchant-Ivory made *some* pretty good films.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:22 (nine years ago) link
I haven't watched Cosmopolis (or Maps to the Stars yet), I'm a bit wary with all the bad reviews
xxp
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:22 (nine years ago) link
One thing's for sure, we'd never be talking at the same time.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:26 (nine years ago) link
xp my take on latter-day Cronenberg seems to be very much inverse to the general levels of critical enthusiasm
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:27 (nine years ago) link
So I don't really know if it's a "recommendation" to say I loved Cosmopolis and really liked Maps.
well it's not like those two received the critical enthusiasm of the previous three
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:36 (nine years ago) link
Cosmopolis is pretty bad.
I agree with Morbs about A Dangerous Method--it's excellent and not at all "stodgy". Aside from the setting it's very much of a piece with the rest of his ourvre. Also Viggo Mortenson is a lot of fun as Freud.
― Punny Names (latebloomer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:36 (nine years ago) link
Cronenberg features ranked:
VideodromeDead RingersThe BroodeXistenZThe FlyThey Came From WithinA History of ViolenceNaked LunchScannersRabidThe Dead ZoneA Dangerous MethodMaps to the StarsSpiderEastern PromisesCrashCosmopolis
Have yet to see M. Butterfly.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:39 (nine years ago) link
the blurb in Morbz link about M. Butterfly is v otm - it's totally inert
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:44 (nine years ago) link